Debate Over `Amnesty' Represents Immigration Fault Line

By Kathleen Hunter and Jonathan D. Salant -
Apr 17, 2013

A Senate plan to rewrite U.S.
immigration law has stoked a years-old debate over allowing
undocumented residents a chance to become citizens, a measure
viewed by opponents as rewarding lawbreakers with “amnesty”
and undercutting American workers.

Though Republican opposition to creating a citizenship path
for the nation’s estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants
has waned since the November election, the issue still divides
the party. Some lawmakers and interest groups criticized the
bipartisan Senate plan released yesterday, centering on their
opposition to amnesty for those in the country illegally.

“There will be 11 million, maybe more, given immediate
amnesty” and placed “on a guaranteed path to citizenship,”
said Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, a Republican and the chief
opponent of the Senate proposal. “The amount of immigration is
going to be far more than most Americans think.”

The Senate proposal from a group of four Democrats and four
Republicans would allow undocumented immigrants who pay at least
$2,000 in fines and meet other criteria to apply for citizenship
after more than a decade in the U.S., though only if specific
border security benchmarks are reached. The four Republican
members insisted that border security must be improved before
any undocumented people could become citizens.

Arizona Senator John McCain, one of the Republicans in the
group, yesterday told reporters that tightened border security
is “vital” and would help attract Republican support.

Rubio’s Views

Florida Senator Marco Rubio is among the Republicans trying
to pitch a citizenship path to reluctant party members. As part
of that effort, Rubio has been seeking to differentiate his
group’s plan from a 1986 law that made 3 million undocumented
workers eligible for legal status.

The proposal will address the “11 million undocumented
people living under de facto amnesty” right now, Rubio said
today in a statement after the bill’s text was made publicly
available early this morning.

He added that the plan would deal with the undocumented
population “in a tough but humane way that is fair to those
trying to come here the right way and linked to achieving
several security triggers.”

Rubio’s stance on the immigration issue embodies an attempt
by party leaders since November to reconnect with Hispanic
voters; 71 percent voted for President Barack Obama’s re-
election. Almost two-thirds of Americans, 64 percent, support a
citizenship path for the undocumented, according to a Wall
Street Journal/NBC News poll conducted April 5-8.

Republican Division

Still, the party remains split over the issue.

Texas Senator John Cornyn, the chamber’s second-ranking
Republican, said he was skeptical of the citizenship path
proposal because it hinged on “promises that may or may not be
possible to keep” of improved U.S. border security.

“We need to be realistic in terms of what this present
Congress could bind future Congresses to in terms of goals five
years and 10 years down the road,” Cornyn said yesterday in an
interview.

Sessions predicted that the citizenship path wasn’t “going
to become law as written,” adding that he hadn’t decided
whether to try to alter the bill or oppose it.

The comments signify that mustering the 60 votes needed to
pass the plan in the Senate will be difficult.

Democratic senators, including New York’s Charles Schumer,
met privately today with representatives of immigration-overhaul
advocacy groups and progressive organizations to hear their
thoughts on the proposal and urge them to support it.

‘30,000 Feet’

Attendees raised concerns that the Senate proposal doesn’t
include protection for same-sex couples, as well as about
revisions to family-unification visas and reductions in a visa
category that aims to boost the diversity of countries from
which people immigrate to the U.S., said Angela Kelley, vice
president for immigration policy at the Democratic-leaning
Center for American Progress in Washington.

Still, “the conversation was mainly at 30,000 feet and it
was largely very sunny,” Kelley said.

Concerns about whether border security triggers were so
stringent that they would prevent people from becoming citizens
and about racial-profiling prohibitions in the bill also were
raised, said Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s
Voice, an immigrant advocacy group.

‘Real Crisis’

Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, the nation’s
largest labor federation, today in a statement called the bill
“another step toward addressing a real crisis.” Still, Trumka
said there were “several details in the bill that cause
unintended, but serious, harm to immigrant workers and the
broader labor market.”

The PICO National Network, a group of religious
organizations that supports a path to citizenship for
undocumented immigrants, says the measure places “unnecessary
obstacles and delays in the path to citizenship and could
unfairly exclude some of the 11 million aspiring Americans,” as
Bishop Ricardo McClin, pastor of the Church of God Restoration
in Kissimmee, Florida, wrote in a statement.

“Of course, we’re open to some changes,” Schumer told
reporters after the meeting, adding that he would encourage
those with concerns “not to let the perfect be the enemy of the
good.”

An immigration-law rewrite faces longer odds in the
Republican-run House, where a separate bipartisan group is
drafting a proposal which could be released later this month.

House Proposal

In a statement today, members of the House group saluted
the Senate proposal and said they had made “substantial
progress” on their plan, which they said would establish “a
tough but fair process that respects the rule of law.”

Since the last major immigration revision was approved in
1986, lawmakers have unsuccessfully tried several times to
revamp U.S. immigration policy, most recently in 2007.

Representative Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican, yesterday
described the Senate plan as an “amnesty proposal” that he
said “will encourage even more illegal immigration.”

Interest groups opposed to a citizenship path are
marshaling their resources to combat the Senate proposal,
concentrating on getting their members and allies to call
Capitol Hill and make sure lawmakers know where they stand.

“Our goal is to make the American public aware that
there’s nothing in it for them,” said Ira Mehlman, a spokesman
for the Washington-based Federation for American Immigration
Reform, which supports limits on immigration. He said the
proposal includes “all sorts of goodies for people who broke
our laws and people who want to hire cheap labor.”

Radio Hosts

FAIR is hosting 46 talk-radio hosts in a Washington hotel
today and tomorrow who will broadcast live in opposition to the
measure as the group’s activists lobby lawmakers. Some hosts
will be asking listeners to call home-state lawmakers, in a
reprise of efforts that helped sink the 2007 immigration
legislation when congressional Republicans split with Republican
President George W. Bush.

FAIR also plans to use social media and communications with
its 250,000 members to alert them to the immigration bill and
urge them to contact their lawmakers.

On the website of Arlington, Virginia-based NumbersUSA,
which also opposes the immigration bill, visitors can click on
the home page to send a fax to their member of Congress, their
senators and Obama. The group maintains that immigration should
be restricted at a time of high unemployment.

Call Lawmakers

“We will be doing everything we can to help the 20 million
unemployed Americans have a voice and be heard in this debate,”
said Roy Beck, NumbersUSA’s president.

The group plans to contact its 1.8 million members and have
them call their lawmakers and friends. NumbersUSA also plans to
target ads in areas represented by undecided senators.

Tea-Party groups may also join in the fight, Beck said.
“Once the costs of this are looked at, I don’t think you’re
going to see any Tea Parties supporting it,” he said. “Their
main thing is less government spending, smaller government.”

Some already are weighing in. The Tea Party Patriots asked
supporters yesterday to go to their senators’ offices and wave a
flag, a sign or both, and then deliver a letter. They object to
the process, saying lawmakers are negotiating behind closed
doors and will hold just one hearing with no amendments. “We
aren’t asking for a lot,” the note said. “Just to be
represented rather than ruled over.”

McCain and Schumer said there will be full and open
hearings with ample opportunity to debate and amend the bill.

Provisional Status

Under the senators’ plan, immigrants who entered the U.S.
illegally before Dec. 31, 2011, can apply for provisional status
after passing a criminal background check and paying back taxes
and a fine. After 10 years and more fines, those people could
apply for a green card, signifying permanent resident status, if
they learn English and maintain regular employment in the U.S.,
according to a 17-page summary.

In a statement issued by the White House after the meeting
with the two senators, Obama praised the measure as a set of
“common-sense steps that the majority of Americans support.”

The plan for securing the border must, within five years,
result in an apprehension rate of at least 90 percent in “high-
risk” sectors where more than 30,000 people are caught a year.
If that rate isn’t met, the proposal would establish a
commission of border-state officials and border-security experts
to recommend ways to achieve the 90 percent goal.

“We’re not going to get every vote, but we hope to get a
significant number of Republicans and Democrats to send a
message to the House that there is very strong support,” McCain
said.